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My Trip Down the Pink Carpet

A hilarious romp from small-town USA to the pink carpet of Hollywood with the beloved Emmy-winning actor, playwright, and gay icon Leslie Jordan is a small man with a giant propensity for scene stealing. Best known for his bravura recurring role as Karen's nemesis, Beverley Leslie, onWill & Grace(for which he won a Best Guest Actor in a Comedy Series Emmy in 2006), he has also made memorable appearances onAlly McBeal, Boston Public, Monk, andMurphy Brown.Raised in a conservative family in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Leslie -- who describes himself as "the gayest man I know" -- boarded a Greyhound bus bound for LA with $1,200 sewn into his underpants and never looked back. His pocket-sized physique and inescapable talent for high camp paved the way to a lucrative and varied career in commercials and on television. Along the way he immersed himself in writing for the stage, and his one-man testimonials have become cult off-Broadway hits. But with success came dangerous temptations: a self-proclaimed former substance abuser and sexaholic, Leslie has spent time in jail and struggled to overcome his addictionsand self-loathing.My Trip Down the Pink Carpetis a rollicking, fast-paced collection of stories, served up with wit, panache, and plenty of biting asides. Filled with comically overwrought childhood agonies, offbeat observations, and revealing celebrity encounters -- from Boy George to George Clooney -- it delivers a fresh, laugh-out-loud take on Hollywood, fame, addiction, gay culture, and learning to love oneself.

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Summary

The Emmy Award-winning actor, playwright, and gay icon shares his personal story from his childhood as a member of a conservative Tennessee family and his early commercial stints to his one-man testimonials off Broadway to his struggles with substance abuse and sex addiction.

Leslie Jordan is probably best known as the campy “Beverly Leslie” from television’s Will & Grace, and claims to have fallen ‘right out of the womb to land smack dab in his mama’s high heels’.
In his memoir Mr. Jordan reveals how he always knew he was ‘different’, but that his grandparents and mother never questioned him during his southern Baptist youth. He also paints a tender – yet brutal - picture of his time as a hospice volunteer with Linn House in West Hollywood at the height of the AIDS crisis and hysteria in the early 1990’s, and his commitment to the Trevor Project, a national GLTB helpline.
There is plenty of upbeat celebrity chat about his times on-stage (like the time he was a Ferengi with a Tennessee accent on Star Trek) - and off-stage (like the time he shared a prison cell he with Robert Downey Jr. - which turned out to be a lot more poignant than it seems).
Throughout the autobiography the elfin maven speaks frankly (and often graphically) about getting started in “the biz”, and his many uphill battles with drugs, sex-addiction and self-loathing. But although some of his stories are harrowing, Mr. Jordan never sounds self-deprecating; rather his anecdotes are full of self-awareness and even better, self-acceptance.
The result is a very readable memoir with an atmosphere of gratitude and grace that is quite inspiring.